Yo Government! Stay Off My Twitter, Okay?

No I am serious. I am beyond disgusted with you, my Government, for trying to smother the only place where I can voice my opinions.

People don’t call me to appear on TV, my sound bytes don’t make it into the newspapers and I am not interested in protest marches – way too much trouble, those! I am a common man in India and sadly, no one here listens to the common man.

But Twitter is the one place where I can speak up and reach out to those handful of like minded people and bots. It is where I can hope to cash in on those funny hashtags which get started when one of your ministers utters something really inane. And now you want to shut down the only place where I can have fun!

Look, don’t give me that crap ki Twitter helped spread those rumors of threat to the Northeastern students. Your ministers have millions of followers and not one of them put out a single tweet trying to kill those rumors. Instead, blame was being leveled at the state government. Trying to score political brownie points at such a time? Not cool man.. not cool.

What a shame: exodus of Northeasterners from Bangalore hindustantimes.com/India-news/New… via @garetheswin State must actively work to reverse such trends

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 16, 2012

What more, the official PMO Twitter account that day was busy tweeting about Rajiv Aawaas Yojana to its 174k followers!

Turning Reforms into Reality - 34m new concrete-roof houses in 10 years - RajivAawaas Yojna to push for more twitter.com/PMOIndia/statu…

— Dr Manmohan Singh (@PMOIndia) August 16, 2012

Seriously?? Is this what you tweet about when the nation is facing such a serious issue? I wish I had more than 2 hands because I can’t facepalm enough.

Oh… and you are blaming social networking sites for being "slow" in removing content? Really? Of all the people in the world, YOU are accusing others of being slow? If a sloth had complained, it would have carried more weight!

Did you know that billions of updates go live on Facebook and Twitter everyday? And when you give them a directive as broad as ‘remove content that is hateful and inflammatory’ do you really expect them to act with lightning speed?

You are ruling a nation of 1.2 billion people, goddammit! Your communication should be crisp and sophisticated, and not like that of a teenager. Oh and please don't shove your Cyber laws in my face because we both know it is as terrible as a Govinda flick.

Also, what's with the blanket ban on all parody accounts? Can’t you take some fun? Or did you lose your sense of humor along with your wisdom? This tweet from @gkhambha is so bang on the target:

If the PMO is afraid of parody they should start by not being a joke

— Khamba (@gkhamba) August 21, 2012

You were the same guys who said "don’t call us all corrupt because of a few corrupt ones among us". Yet, today, you’re issuing blanket-bans on all parody accounts because a few of them purportedly misbehaved.

The entire situation is so unbelievably bad that it makes me want to download and watch all the Twilight movies to reinforce my belief that there can be things in the world which are much worse.

Sadly, this is what we get when we have people in their 80s ruling over a predominantly youthful nation. This is what we get when we prefer to stay at home and enjoy the "holiday" instead of going and casting our vote to remove you from power.

I hope you get beaten black and blue in the 2014 elections. I would have prayed to God if I weren't agnostic. Therefore, I am relying on my fellow countrymen to do the needful instead.

Thanks.

A Twitter addict

Image source: JD Hancock